My dad just doesn't want to seem to listen. I will say exactly the same thing that the doctors say, but he will only listen when the doctors are talking. He will also latch onto one or two things the doctors will say and ignore everything else.

He refuses to believe that my migraines have become more frequent and severe now that my chiari symptoms have been triggered. I've had headaches and migraines all my life, but now that I have chiari symptoms they've become a weekly ordeal. How can I get him to see the connection????

Well said, gunflint. Can you use a teaching technique - get him to explain the situation to someone else, someone he knows and generally can speak to in his own terms? If you somehow prep that person to get him to explain it - not challenging your dad too much if he gets it wrong, but letting him present what he understands of your current condition, your future and your feelings, your family's feelings about the challenges that lie before you. If he underplays the situation, and an outside person simply says wow, that sounds like you have a big situation to deal with, now and in the future, he might start thinking about it more directly.

He probably doesn't want you to have surgery, if you haven't already. My mother was kind of like that. She kept saying that even though I had been diagnosed with this, maybe my symptoms weren't caused by it. But when I got a second opinion from a doctor who was considered to be very conservative about recommending surgery, and he thought I needed it, she settled to the idea.

He might be resisting your attempts to convince him just because you're trying to convince him. It sounds like oversimplification, but maybe it "has to be his idea" before he'll even think about it. I think you should stop pushing it. Don't communicate with him verbally about your pain, but instead let him see it by how you look. You'll be surprised how quickly he asks if you're OK.

Just my humble opinion. Gentle hugs dear.

MaryGenetic CM/SM (me, my son, my twin sister and both of her daughters), RSD of right arm.

Both my parents refuse to even say the word chiari. My dad has debilitating headaches like me and my mom has myasthenia gravis. You'd think they'd be empathetic but I guess not. So I just stopped talking about it with them.

And no I haven't had the surgery. But after an 11 day streak of headaches, I'm very close to begging my neurosurgeon to fix this.